Global data-center construction is entering a historic expansion, PwC says — and the projected cumulative investment over the next 25 years is roughly $32 trillion. Over the nearer five-year stretch ending in 2030, the firm expects worldwide data-center investment to come to about $5.1 trillion.
The hard part, according to PwC, isn't just raising that money. Growing AI demand is straining everything from power and equipment to cooling, racks, construction, and delivery. The real bottleneck is whether the industry can convert all that capital into reliable, usable megawatt-scale compute capacity. The report argues that as AI infrastructure scales up, the sector needs a more unified full-stack approach to coordination and delivery to reduce the risk of breakdowns at handoff points between different stages.
PwC believes a full-stack data-center orchestrator could capture roughly 5% to 8% of total project spending. On the expected $5.1 trillion in cumulative investment through 2030, that would equate to a potential opportunity worth $255 billion to $408 billion.